POTS causes my blood pressure to drop when I stand, resulting in passing out and scaring anyone unprepared to witness it. Patients with POTS are also commonly diagnosed with small fiber neuropathy and experience extreme fatigue, lightheadedness, fainting, shaking, headaches, heart palpitations, exercise intolerance, nausea, diminished concentration, coldness or pain in the extremities, chest pain and shortness of breath.

But back in 2008, Pots were just things my family cooked with and no doctors could figure out what was wrong with me. It took two and a half years and twenty-five doctors until one incredible cardiologist turned to me and said, “I know what you have.” I went straight to the internet. However, there have been so many things over the past ten years that websites like WebMD could never have prepared me for. Here are some of them.

This FDA meeting gives us with alopecia areata a chance to tell the people who approve drugs and medical devices that we need more research into treatments for AA. I’ll be flying out to Washington, D.C. in a couple weeks. Have you heard of an FDA PFDD meeting before?

Getting steroid injections in your eyebrows? Piece of cake. Actually, I could feel the needle tug as he pierced, breaking the tiny veins running throughout. A mixture of corticosteroids was injected. My dermatologist looked at my head and said ‘wow, you really did lose a lot of it on that trip, didn’t you?’

Vertigo sucks. Your balance is off, you see double, lopsided, out of place, and it can get nauseating. Today included a trip to the grocery store, and in grabbing things from the shelves, I almost needed to invoice vertigo for the damage!

I mean, I actually had not paid attention to people’s reactions to my alopecia areata before. Because it happened face-to-face at an airport security checkpoint with people all around me, it was a bit jarring. Here’s what the TSA agent did.

Here we are, day 2 of traveling with Alopecia Areata. So far, I’ve seen increased medications, a bad bathroom trip, and hair circling a shower drain. But read on, I’m happy to be chemo-capped in Alabama!

As I finished packing for a trip to Alabama, I worried about how alopecia areata would affect my travel, if at all. Well, I’m writing this from inside airport security and I have an update on my hair loss, along with new pics.

As if I needed an internet service to repeat back to me what society dispenses daily. Facebook, the epitome of social media, where millions are members, where the platform shapes your business and your life, found my photo too ugly to advertise.

It’s day 10 of my current flare up from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder causing hair loss. I was feeling like I looked sick, so I visited my hairstylist. Read about my embarrassing moment and see the final results!

Round 3 of chemo should have started yesterday. But blood tests came back and some stuff with my kidneys were still too high to start. In the afternoon, I went to the kidney specialist (very unprepared). In good news, I’m NOT having pain from the cancerous lymph nodes, but I am having body pain from the car accident.

I’m currently at the halfway point of treatment for my testicular cancer. I have seen a difference in hair loss and skin color. I am planning a big shaving reveal. I’m doing everything I can to hold my head up high and overcome everything that has been thrown my way. I knew cancer treatment was expensive, but did not expect the bill collectors so soon. You probably will not guess what triggered the calls.

While at the cancer treatment center, they were trying to control my WBC and problems with my bone marrow caused great pain. I could barely walk. So I was hospitalized again. While I was there, they tried more ways to control the Afib that won’t go away. Before I went home, it finally happened – hair loss.